At 9/30/03 11:53 AM, Roger B.A. Klorese wrote: >> I don't think my mistrust is irrational. After all, Tucows introduced >> e-mail service over exactly the same kind of objections, >> after originally >> saying that they had no intention of offering services that >> compete with >> their original target market (the small-to-medium technically >> knowledgeable ISP who needs things like domain registration, secure >> certificates, payment gateway services, etc.). > >There's just so far one can grow a business solely on that maket. Do you >think they have some obligation to honor a blood oath in perpetuity here, to >stop growing or disband so as not to interfere with you?
Of course not; don't be silly. Later in the message, I wrote as much: >Of course, companies and markets change; I can certainly see how OpenSRS >could decide to focus on new markets, making more money by doing so, and >can't blame them if that's the case. My point was simply that as OpenSRS changes their target market, I may well go elsewhere. I'm not under any illusion that I make a difference, but if many others feel the same way, that may make a difference. >> The introduction of turnkey e-mail, and the future introduction of >> Blogware, are a fairly clear move towards providing services that are >> traditionally offered at a retail level, being sold by Tucows (as I >> mentioned) by what amounts to little more an affiliate program. > >No, it amounts to a service provider program. The service is customer >service, though, not bit-moving. The "service" provided by the reseller under these models is nothing more than marketing and first-level tech support: answering the phone and helping people who have lost their password, etc. That's it. There's no way a reseller can debug a mail service problem, for example, and no requirement that they understand how these services work. I stand by my assertion that this is more like how an affiliate program operates than how "traditional" Tucows resellers operate. >That's the point: they should NEVER say "never" about anything. Exactly. Which makes it relevant for people to say "Tucows would annoy me if they do X, Y or Z", so that Tucows knows that there is opposition to things that they may consider from time to time. I make no apology for stating my unequivocal opposition to these kinds of services whenever they're rumored; it's free market research for Tucows without the bother of sending out surveys :-) -- Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies
